From ‘This Moment,’ by Beesan Nateel
The poems, essays, and genre-encompassing reflections in the THIS MOMENT section of the ArabLit Quarterly Spring 2024 “Gaza! Gaza! Gaza!” issue were curated by issue co-editors Muhammad Zaqzooq and Mahmoud […]
Country Focus
Shakir Mustafa on the Obstacles to Translating Iraqi Literature into English
Shakir Mustafa was a scholar focused on Irish literature and drama in 2003 and 2004 when the invasion and occupation of Iraq “swatted away my other interests in English, American, […]
Recommendations: On the New Wave of Memoirs from Iraq
Editor’s note: Publishers who are interested in Iraqi literatures will find more in our May Publishers Newsletter, out on May 15. By Hend Saeed In recent decades, memoir has burgeoned […]
An Excerpt from Falah Raheem’s ‘Hedgehogs on a Hot Day’
In a recent interview, we asked Iraqi writer Duna Ghali which Iraqi writers she recommends; she pointed us to Falah Raheem, whose Hedgehogs on a Hot Day was published to great acclaim […]
Sarah Enany on Living — And Making a Living — As a Translator in Egypt
Sarah Enany is a Banipal Prize-winning literary translator (for her translation of Rasha Adly’s The Girl with Braided Hair) and a professor in the English Department of Cairo University. She […]
What Can Palestinian Literature Tell Us About Amputations in Gaza?
By Graham Liddell Words fail spectacularly in the shadow of 2,000 pound bombs. Palestinian author Anton Shammas recently described his own incapacity to respond in writing to the slaughter and […]
From Duna Ghali’s ‘Orbits of Loneliness’
A few years ago, when we asked Egyptian novelist Miral al-Tahawy for a favorite book in Arabic by a woman writer, she said, “Truth is, there is a long list […]
New Short Fiction from Sudan: ‘The Drunken Donkey’
The Drunken Donkey Dr. Abuelgasim Gour Translated by Nassir al-Sayeid al-Nour Among all the donkeys, my aunt Um Makhayan’s donkey was the one that enjoyed gnawing on the Saheb tree, […]
Early 20th Century Short Fiction in Translation: Muhammad Taymour’s ‘A Boy Who Became a Man’
This short story originally appeared in Muhammad Taymour’s collection What the Eyes Can See (1922), and this story was written in 1917. It recounts events in the life a fictional […]